Vang Vieng

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We stayed in Vang Vieng for 3 days...My 26th birthday would fall during this stay. It was an interesting experience but i don't think i would go back there as the town had almost lost it's soul having very little culture left and only catering to the needs of the many backpackers passing through. It is a place of drinking and partying and little more. There was some treks on offer and we ended up partaking in the infamous tubing(sitting in huge inner tubes from vehicle tyres and floating down the river) but not in the conventional manner so to say as we weren't drunk out of our minds when we did it and we tubed through Caverns in the mountains and then kayaked alongside the drunken tubers down the river and past the many many stop off bars where one can drink copious amounts and get seriously bruised on big slides, swings and zip lines. It was quite hilarious and shamful watching all of the blotto westerners stumbling around with their many aquired injuries from dutch courage fueled activities ie throwing theselves around the place like feckin eejits. Anyway, aside from our tubing/kayaking tour we also rented bicycles and explored some of the picturesque surroundings including a beautiful large dark turquoise lagoon. Also when we arrived in Vang Vieng we had a new traveller join our group, an english girl called Sarah. To be quite frank she was ok, but very arrogant and kind of imposed herself on us after making no prior effort to get to know us(as we had travelled on the same boats and buses as her before)and we would come to realise that we could have done without this new addition as it/she would be the cause of the premature split of the original group. This saddened me greatly as we were very fond of Ivan and Rob(who left us as they couldn't stand sarah). It's all part and parcel of travelling that not everyone can get along but i only wish we had the integrity to tell her to feck off earlier on rather than continue to travel with her for another 3 weeks! Oh well...you make some bad decisions and we've come to realise now how easy it is to be manipulated by some people. When she would eventually get bored of us, completely change her personality, and land herself on another group of travellers (which would cause them to split) we realised that she had problems and nicknamed her Yoko Ono. Being such a sensitive soul, i got highly effected by this 'betrayal' at the time, after having spent the most time out of everyone with her. Like myself, she was also quite active and keen to explore and, apart from her split-personality, we had a fair bit in common. Also, another brutal fact of travelling is that you must never become too attached to people you meet on your trail, no matter how alike you might be, as everyone is out for themselves at the end of the day and will make decisions that suit them best even if they know it might hurt you. Would you listen to me waffle on...phew...well i'm glad i got that off my chest...that was probably for me rater than for anyone who reads this.

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